[2] He was educated at home (having come down with tuberculosis aged 12) and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA in Natural Sciences in 1921 and was later an 1851 Exhibition Senior Student.

He showed that the hydrogen peroxide formed in the reaction of xanthine oxidase with molecular oxygen inactivated the enzyme and that the inhibition could be relieved by the addition of catalase,[7] thus helping to establish a biochemical role for the latter enzyme.

Dixon published a series of papers on D-amino acid oxidase,[8] detailing the kinetics and thermodynamics of association of the coenzyme with the apoprotein, the substrate and inhibitor specificity, and the effect of pH on the kinetic constants.

[9] In 1931, he collaborated with David Keilin and Robin Hill to determine the first absorption spectrum of a cytochrome, cytochrome c.[10] Dixon studied the chemistry of lachrymators and mustard gas and proposed a phosphokinase theory to explain their mode of action.

[13] Dixon's classic book Enzymes, written with Edwin C. Webb and published in 1958,[14] with further editions in 1964[15] and 1979,[16] had a great influence of the development of biochemistry.